Star-Formation in Neutral Hydrogen Gas Reservoirs at Cosmic Noon

Abstract

We aim to constrain the average star formation associated with neutral hydrogen gas reservoirs at cosmic noon. Using a unprecedented sample of 1716 high column density Damped Ly-$\alpha$ absorbers (DLAs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with log($N$(HI) / cm${}^{-2}$) $\ge$21, we generated the average Ly-$\alpha$ emission spectrum associated to DLAs, free from emission from the background quasar. We measured Ly$\alpha$ emission at $>5.8\sigma$ level with luminosity $8.95\pm 1.54\times 10^{40}\text{erg}{\text{s}}^{-1}$ (corresponding to about 0.02 L${}^{\star }$ at $z\sim$ 2-3) in systems with average log($N$(HI)/ $c{m}^{-2}$) $\approx$21.2 and at median redshift of $z\sim$ 2.64. The peak of the Ly$\alpha$ emission is apparently redshifted by $\sim$300 km s${}^{-1}$ relative to the absorption redshift, which is seemingly due to suppression of blue Ly-$\alpha$ photons by radiative transfer through expanding gas. We infer that DLAs form stars with an average rate of (0.08 $\pm$ 0.01)/${\text{f}}_{\text{esc}}{\text{M}}_{\odot }{\text{yr}}^{-1}$, i.e, $\approx (0.54\pm 0.09){\text{M}}_{\odot }{\text{yr}}^{-1}$ for a typical escape fraction, ${\text{f}}_{\text{esc}}=0.15$, of Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting galaxies. DLA galaxies follows the star formation main sequence of star-forming galaxies at high redshift, suggesting that the DLA population is dominated by the lower mass end of Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting galaxies.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in A&A (Letters)

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